Admissions Policy Is Unfair

MAIL

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED
November 17, 1990

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I was interested to see that your November 7 issue contained both an editorial about the injustice of Harvard's athlete and legacy favoring admission policy and an article on Kathy Dowling, an enthusiastically anti-intellectual member of the volleyball and track teams.

"Revelling" in her "non-serious academic approach," Dowling believes that she "took things too seriously my freshman year...Now I talk my friends into sicking out of exams." This king of attitude is amusing coming from Bart Simpson, but shouldn't more be expected of Harvard students?

The Crimson has taken a commendable stand against the current admissions policy. The few people who doubted that Harvard admits many athletes and legacies of inferior academic ability should be convinced by new statistics that this is indeed the case. Harvard's admissions office should be convinced by the new statistics that this is indeed the case.

Harvard's admissions policy demeans real "scholar-athletes" and truly deserving legacies by perpetuating negative stereotypes. It discriminates against groups such as Asian-Americans who are statistically more likely to have high GPA's, but less likely to be involved in athletics in high school.

In its desire to rake in contributions from alumni who want winning teams and good prospects for their own children, Harvard has badly compromised its role as an intellectual leader among American colleges. Betsy Bynum '91-'92